Learning to live with chronic pain and illness gracefully

Smart Ideas!

I haven’t done one of these in a while and fell off the PFAM list so I missed the latest blog carnival, but since I have some contributions here they are!

Phone shoulder rest for work: this is a such a silly, ridiculously 80’s looking thing, but I spend long hours on the phone for web meetings and balancing the phone was painful (and dropping it embarrassing). This cheapo solution works greats and takes a lot of strain off my neck and shoulders, which is always good. (Mine is beige. It is slightly soft and smells funny. I almost said something incredibly inappropriate at work when I opened the package.)

Tying my scarf in an “European loop”. This is super easy since I just double the scarf and then flip it over my head instead of having to lift my arms up to wrap the scarf around my neck. It is fast, easy, and looks nice with a lot less effort. Win!

And in “Why is this a good idea?” pondering: staying up when I’m tired so that I go to bed at a “decent time”. Last night I could have easily crashed out at 8:30 but made myself wait until after 9 pm so that I didn’t wake up too early. I’m tempted to just sleep whenever I’m tired, but I’m so afraid it will throw my sleep cycles out of whack for work. Silly me, I woke up 1:45 a.m. in pain anyway. Ugh.